I have known Alfie since we were little but the one standing in front of me bore no resemblance to the boy I had once known. Gone was the happy-go-lucky, friendly child and it’s place was a sullen, withdrawn, rebellious youth. There was not a single shred of the boy I had spent my childhood days with, the boy I had spent so much of my growing up with, the boy who I was totally inseparable from. My best friend forever.
They said that his family fell on hard times and they moved to a cheaper, poorer part of town. That was the last I heard from or saw Alfie. Their departure sent the rumour mills in overdrive. There were talks of dishonest dealings, investigations, dealings with the mob that had gone sour, abuse, affairs, bad investments. Rumour seemed to be swirling everywhere. I was too little to even care. What I did care about was about my friend who I missed dearly. The boy who I saw was someone else. Though most of his childhood features were gone there was still something familiar about him.
From the moment I saw him I knew that he would be preyed upon by the jocks, the snobs, the princesses and the brats, the queen bees and their sidekicks and their minions. He didn’t conform to their standards and refused to bend to their ways. They targeted him with their meanness, their tricks and pranks and spread rumours about not just him but also of his past. For them he was an itch they needed to scratch off. They spread all sorts of rumours speculating on what brought him back to town.
They tried to break him but he refused to be broken. He stood up to them, always ready to take them head on. He challenged them and their position, much to their annoyance as they hated to be challenged. This made them even more mean. Sometimes I wondered what would I have done if I had found myself in his place. I am sure I would have cracked under all that meanness. That made me admire him even more.
But despite of all my admiration I found myself guilty of not standing by my friend. Maybe it was the fact that I was one of them and mixing with him would get me disgraced and disowned. This would not be what I wanted and would not bode well with the family too.
I stood by, a mute spectator of their meanness, never joining them but at the same time not stopping them. So it may have hurt to see and hear them slandering him and spread false truth but I didn’t do much to stop it, at first.
But I came to a point where I couldn’t be a mute spectator any longer. Maybe it was the age old friendship kicking in, or the feeling of protectiveness towards someone dear to me, or something that I just couldn’t figure out what. Nonetheless I tried my best to make him understand their ways and then began intervening, where I could, trying my best to ensure that things didn’t get out of hand. Much to the annoyance of all the parties. He warned me that he didn’t need my support, not knowing that he needed it. Sometimes I wondered what would I need to do to thaw this icy exterior to find the friend I once knew underneath it? What did I need to do to make up for all the time we had lost?
At the same time his grades were not too good so I was assigned to tutor him (good for me and bad for him as he was trying to avoid me). Initially he was resistant to this saying that he didn’t need any help but later on grudgingly accepted that he needed it. During this period I felt we did make progress, albeit a slow one, in reconciling. Slowly but steadily I got glimpses of the friend I once knew. His grades did improve and he became a bit more cordial to others and others more accepting towards him, he even made a few friends. But more importantly was that we were getting to spend time with each other and this time was helping us rekindle the bond we once knew.
Then one evening, while I was returning from my grocery shopping, I heard a ruckus in the parking lot. When I reached the spot from where the noise was coming from, I found him being held back and beaten up by a group of jocks who had had it in from the day he refused to tow the line and back down to them. They were throwing punches at him while a couple of their minions held him back. They mocked him, taunted him. He winced in pain with every blow but still tried to free himself from the hands that held him back.
I dropped my grocery bag and ran to his side pushing away his attackers, shoving them away. They taunted me too and warned me that there would be dire consequences for my action. For the first time in a long while, I didn’t care what they had to say. I threw in a couple of blows and landed a couple of punches on the intended target. I freed him and together we fought them off. They ran away with their tails between their legs but not before they hurled a few abuses, taunts and curses at me.
This was the first time I had been in a street fight and it felt exhilarating. Could feel the chill and excitement of the fight. I could feel the adrenaline pumping in my vein. In a strange way I felt more alive than I have ever felt before. A glorious sense of victory, even if it was only just a small one.
I turned to see if he shared the same sentiment as I did. I saw him bent over trying to catch his breath. There were a few bruises where they had rained blows on him. There was a cut on his lip that was bleeding. I reached out to him to check and see if he was alright. He pushed my hand and shoved me. “Why did you do that,” he said angrily, “why did you put yourself in harms way, you could have got hurt.” “I don’t mind that, I am not afraid of them or their threats,” I said hottily, “You needed my help and I was there to help you.”
“I didn’t need your help,” he said angrily, I could sense the anger growing in him and this perplexed me. “I could have easily handled them myself, I didn’t need any help from you. What do you care?” “Well I could see that,” I said with a growing annoyance that was threatening to boil over, “I could see how well you were handling them. They outnumbered you and you needed my help. Don’t you see that I care for you. You were my best friend and I want that friend of mine back. You need my help and I came to your aid”
“If you cared so much where were you all these years, where were you when I needed my friend the most,” he said finally bringing down the wall that he had built around himself, “when I was used and abused, physically and mentally. When I was in a dark place and needed my friend but I had none,” he said trying desperately to fight back the tears that were welling up in his eyes.
“If I would have only known,” I said trying to find the right words to say but struggling because in a way I was hurting through this revelation. “But I was only a child, what could I do? Who would have believed me?”
“Bullshit,” he said angrily, “that was the thing that I told myself too and let the abuse continue. People knew about it, your parents knew about it but chose not to do anything about it. They just looked the other way.”
I looked at him stunned, beginning to sob myself. “If only I would have know I would tried to do something, I would have done something, anything.” I said with tears welling up in my eyes too.
“No child should go through what I had to go through.” He said through the tears. “I was scared and in pain knowing not what to do. People just used and abused me taking advantage of our situation. I even contemplated on put ending it all but couldn’t find the strength to go through with it. I thought that things would improve coming back to the setting I once knew and felt safe. But things didn’t get better. Friends I once knew, turned on me making my life a greater hell than it already is. They treated me like a pariah dog.”
He finally broke down. Here he was a person who I had learned to care about, who I cared about, all broken and wounded and aching badly. Nothing that I could say would soothe the pain he felt. So I did what I knew would be the best. I just hugged him, a warm, tender hug, a way of telling him that I cared for him and would not let anything bad happen to him, cause everything will alright, eventually. I pulled him towards and held on to him tightly. He sobbed bitterly as he buried his face in the embrace, I on my path tried to hold it together and not let my emotions show, not for him, trying my best to comfort him.
We stood that way for quite a while, how long I couldn’t tell, two souls in their own way trying to comfort each other, in a warm embrace. I finally broke the embrace and took his face in my hand. His eyes were red from the tears but grateful to have poured it all out. I wiped away the tears that stained his face. In that moment he stared in my eyes and saw the emotions that I was feeling, damn my eyes for betraying me, and in that moment he leaned forward and kissed me. For a second I was taken aback with what happened, not knowing what to do. But then my feelings for Alfie took over me and I kissed right back.
So there we were, two souls standing in the dark parking, sharing a tender moment. The warm embrace had made way to a passionate kiss, laying emotions bare, raw and right there. For those moments we didn’t care for the world around us, didn’t care if anyone would see us and what would they say, at least not at the time. We were lost in the moment.
I was the first to come out of the moment, and with it came the realisation of what transpired in those moments. Not knowing what to do panic set in. All I wanted was to get out of the place, escape the moment. I just left him standing there wondering what had gotten in me to cause a total 180 degree flip from what had happened just a few moment ago. Left him feeling hurt and confused.
For the next couple of days I tried my best to avoid him, to avoid anyone. I started to feel ashamed of what happened. What if someone saw us? What would they say? I knew there were enough that happened to get the rumour mills running overtime. I cancelled our tutoring sessions and bunked lectures saying I was not feeling too well, had caught a bug. I couldn’t bring myself to face anyone, to face him. Whenever there were people whispering, looking at me, I wondered if they were talking about us and what happened between us making me even more paranoid, making me want to run for the hills, bury my head in the sand, to stay in my room and refuse to come out.
I avoided his calls, finding some excuse or the others to avoid it. But as time went by I began to realise the foolishness of my behaviour. My behaviour was pretty immature and uncalled for and only ended hurting and damaging the both of us. So I made the call and agreed to meet him at the local coffee house.
When I saw him sitting there, waiting for me arrive, I felt a dagger go through my heart, felt the burden with the guilt. He was sad and broken and hurt and tensed and I was to blame for it. He must have been crying all night as the colour had drained from his face. It seemed like he aged in those few days.
When he saw me, he smiled feebly, trying to smile, trying to put on an act. “Thank you so much for agreeing to meet me,” he said, “I thought you would never want to see me after what happened between us. Trust me I don’t know what got in me.” His voice betrayed the pain he was feeling although he tried hard not to show it but you could see the pain in his eyes, you could feel it in his words. “I am sincerely sorry for my actions,” he said, making me feel all the more guilty, “You were kind to me and stood by me when others taunted me, mocked me, ridiculed me, spread rumour about me. And I did this to you. I do not want to loose your friendship cause it means the world to me, even though I may not show it. I am glad you never gave up on even when I was indifferent towards you.”
“If I may dare to say this,” he finally said with hope replacing the pain in his eye, “can we forget what happened and continue to be friends?” He said hopefully.
I looked at him, trying to find the words I wanted to say, I needed to say. “It won’t be easy to forget what happened but we always can and need to move on,” I said slowly, measuring my every words. “I worship I could but I know I can’t, we can’t take back what happened but what we can do is to try to makes sense of it and what it means.”
“I too owe you an apology,” I said, “ I have treated you badly and there’s no logical excuse for it. What happened caught me by surprise and I ended up not handling it too well. I really care about you and the truth be told, I like you too. What happened caught me unaware. It was spontaneous, it was beautiful, but it also scared the bejesus out of me, left me feeling all confused.”
“As I said, I do like you, but what this is I don’t know. I have never felt like this before, definitely not for any guy, “ I said truthfully, “But I really care for you and you too mean a lot to me. I am not sure what this is but what I do know is that this is definitely not a silly infatuation, there’s some attraction.”
As I said this I could see a smile break on his face, a first for him in a while, I guessed. Seeing him smile brought a sense of relief to me, and I smiled too. “I don’t know where this will lead us, will leave us,” I said, “but I do know that that I will be there for you whenever you need me. I promise to be by your side at all times as your friend, and we can see where this will lead us. So would you be my friend?”
“Of course I will,” he said, smiling from ear to ear, “You are the best thing to happened to me in a while, the best thing that has ever happened to me. A bright light in my darkest day, my knight in shining armour.”
“Ok ok,” I said, unable to hold back a laughter, “I am definitely not all that. But I am honoured that you feel that way. So now with your permission can we order coffee and something to eat, I am famished from all this talking.”
“Of course we can,” he said joining the laughter, for the first time in a while looking all the more adorable, all the more handsome. And I swear he looked even younger as a tension lifted from his face.
So there you have it, an atypical beginning to a not very typical love story.
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